


water from your broken iris (eye inside the storm)

by yeeharley



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking to Cope, Emotional, Fights, Fluff, Gen, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Hurt Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Many apologies, Minor Character Death, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unreliable Narrator, and that's ok, he fixes them, tony stark makes mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/pseuds/yeeharley
Summary: Peter doesn't see the bottle on the desk, the pens on the floor, or the empty glass next to Tony's hand. Humming to himself, he drops his full backpack onto the floor next to his own worktable before pulling out a seat and grabbing a pen and his Chemistry notebook."Hey, Mister Stark!" He chirps, shooting his mentor a bright smile before scribbling something down getting to work on his homework. His knee taps against the bottom of his table, constant and methodical and so damn annoying."Kid." Tony says, cursing the way his voice slurs. "Hi."Peter doesn't seem to notice that something's wrong. He's painfully oblivious, still humming and bouncing his knee, as the nuclear weapon across from him starts to heat up.(Tony Stark had a long history of making mistakes. Peter Parker was the one good decision he'd ever really made, and he was probably also the most important. He was also the easiest to ruin, and Tony was very good at ruining the things he loved.)Title from It's All So Incredibly Loud (Glass Animals)
Relationships: Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Comments: 11
Kudos: 137





	water from your broken iris (eye inside the storm)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ironxprince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironxprince/gifts).



> Hey, everyone! Thanks for reading. I just want to say that I do not condone Tony's behavior in the beginning of this fic, because it's very dangerous for both him and everyone around him. I don't want anyone to think it's okay for people to act like this. It's unacceptable and very childish, and he ends up hurting someone he really cares about. This is the endangerment of a minor and I am not romanticizing it in any way.  
> If I were to write a sequel to this, it would be detailing a recovery of trust and a lot of apologies on Tony's part.  
> This is a very dangerous way for an adult to act and if you're in a situation similar to the one in this fic, please contact somebody who can help you.  
> Enjoy reading!  
> My tumblr: silver-bubbles  
> Dear, I don't know if you ever go back and reread my gifts for you. I reread yours. Please wait for me. 🖤

Peter Parker tallies off his losses in a leather-bound notebook. The pen color varies depending on his mood, and he's sure there are a few duplicates in his day-to-day lists, but it's generally a good method. He's been doing it since he was little, little, little (in that same notebook). The first entry says one word- _truck-_ written in red crayon. There's no 'c', because he'd written it down when he was three.

The next entry says 'momma' and 'dad'. This time, it's written in a black pen stolen from Ben's work desk. It's neater than the first, but certainly not perfect; the letters are choppy and sharp and there's a hole in the circle of the 'o' in 'momma'. Peter had stabbed the pen straight through the paper with his chubby four-year-old fists.

The next decade is full of small, moderately benign words. 'Crayon'. 'Rock'. 'Ben's watch'. 'Leaf'. When he and Flash Thompson, then Eugene, have a falling out, he marks that down beneath 'orange pen'. Peter only bothers tow write them down so he can remember what he's missing and might remember to go back and try to find them later, and for the entirety of his young life, the notebook is simply a to-do list. One of those things you stick on your refrigerator to remind you to make dinner and fold the laundry.

Then, Peter's young life ends.

Page thirty-four of his leather-bound notebook is covered in angry black scribbles. They blend together in some spots, splattering out from where his teardrops had fallen. There's something red smeared across the upper right corner.

Two lines down from the top, Peter writes two words. He does it slowly, fingers moving at a painstaking pace, determined to loop every letter and curve both of the humps in 'B' as perfectly as he can.

'Ben Parker'.

Then, he shoves it under his mattress along with the black sharpie and Ben's favorite watch and swears to never touch it again.

He's going to protect everything he has with every cell of his body, because now that he can, if another name goes into that journal?

It's his fault.

∴

Tony should've known better than to lock the doors to the lab when he knew he was about to do something questionable. Should've known better than to hide it from Pepper and Rhodey, because maybe if he'd let them know that he was in a bad state of mind, they'd have been able to stop him. Should've given somebody other than Peter the key.

Should've thrown out that last bottle of vodka when he'd decided to stop drinking once and for all, along with the rest of his alcohol. 

But, of course, he hadn't done any of that. After all, what was Tony Stark if he didn't constantly screw up and leave the aftermath for others to clean up? 

He'd said, at the beginning of the day, that he'd only have a little bit. A PTSD-fueled dream from the night before had left him shaking and nervous, and he'd needed something to take the edge off. He's an adult, right? He's allowed to do stupid things now. That's _his_ decision, his responsibility.

He's his own person, and he can drink as much vodka as he likes.

That's what he had told himself when hed opened the bottle and poured a small amount into one of Howard's old crystal glasses. Then, he'd poured another, and another, because the shaking in his hands had just continued to get worse and he couldn't stand the helpless feeling left behind.

He'd seen the wormhole again, in his nightmare. The suit had shut down, just like it always did, right when he'd let go of the nuke. Nothing had seemed to be out of the usual- he'd fallen straight through the wormhole, awake enough to watch as the stars faded away, ready to pass out and be caught by Banner for the millionth time.

And then, just as the wormhole had started to close, he'd seen Peter and Pepper staring down at him from the sky, screaming for him to save them. Peter had looked so small, and even though he couldn't figure out how he could see them, he'd been able to tell that his kid was crying. Pepper had been reaching for him, arms outstretched, and just as Tony had reached up to try and pull them back to Earth, the rift had closed and he was left in an empty street.

His dreams always end that way- with Tony safe and a mixture of his family and friends dead, injured, dying, or a mixture of the three. Peter's always there, lying just beyond Tony's reach, and no matter what he does?

His dreams hold him back just long enough to keep him from being able to save him.

Tony's seen Peter get hurt in battle so many times that he can't even count. Hell, he'd seen his child _die_ on Titan, had held him in his arms as Peter had desperately gripped the collar of his shirt and failed to hold on. Had _felt_ as he faded away, sobbing and begging for his life until there had been nothing left.

And now, he's reliving that moment again and again.

 _God,_ it's torture. Tony can't even sleep anymore, because he's reaching the point where if he sees Peter bleeding out or disintegrating one more time, he might actually go insane.

Hindsight says that he should probably have said something to Pepper about how awful he's been feeling and how little he's been sleeping. That's what she always tells him to do- reach out before you can't. 

He's passed the point of no return.

The bottle of vodka is nearly empty after a few hours of sporadic drinking. It's probably excessive, and he probably shouldn't be drinking in a lab full of dangerous equipment, but he's already done it and there's no way he's about to leave. He'll probably just fall off of his seat if he tries to get up. Is it really worth the threat of bodily injury?

His liver says yes. 

His brain says _hell no._

And thus, the decision is made.

Tony tips the remnants of the liquid in the glass down his throat before slamming it back down onto the table. The plastic cup of colored pens Peter had gotten him for Christmas rattle before falling over, scattering over the tiles. He doesn't feel like picking them up, so he doesn't bother.

He just wants to go to sleep.

The kid has other ideas.

Quietly, the main door to the lab slides open and closed. Peter, of course, has the only other key, and judging from the skip in his step, he has something to blabber about. Tony watches him blearily, wishing he'd taken the key before deciding to drink an _entire bottle of vodka._

Peter doesn't see the bottle on the desk, the pens on the floor, or the empty glass next to Tony's hand. Humming to himself, he drops his full backpack onto the floor next to his own worktable before pulling out a seat and grabbing a pen and his Chemistry notebook.

"Hey, Mister Stark!" He chirps, shooting his mentor a bright smile before scribbling something down getting to work on his homework. His knee taps against the bottom of his table, constant and methodical and _so damn annoying._

"Kid." Tony says, cursing the way his voice slurs. "Hi."

Peter doesn't seem to notice that something's wrong. He's painfully oblivious, still humming and bouncing his knee, as the nuclear weapon across from him starts to heat up.

"I got an A on my Chemistry test, and it was one of the hardest tests we're gonna have. I had a hard time though. Ned says he got a C and Flash got a B, and I'm worried he's going to tease Ned about it but I'm pretty sure he'll be okay. Ned's been dealing with Flash forever. Plus, MJ- you know MJ, right? She got an A, and she says if Flash bullies Ned she'll just bully Flash." He says all of this in one breath. "So I think it'll all be fine."

_He doesn't have the patience for this._

"That's... that's good, kid. Do your homework."

"Sure!"

Peter's so blissfully unaware of the fact that, if he talks just a _little bit more,_ Tony might actually blow his top. That knee bounce might as well be a wrecking ball slamming up against the inside of his head- _thud, thud, thud._

_Thud, thud, thud._

_Thud, thud, thud._

"Peter!" Tony snaps, slamming his fist against the table so hard that the glass falls off and shatters against the floor. " _Stop!"_

The poor kid jumps halfway out of his skin at the sound, face pale. Tony realizes a little too late that he's lost his patience and that the sound of his fist on wood probably sounded a bit too much like a gunshot, but it's too late for him to pull himself under control.

" _God,_ do you realize how _loud_ you are?" He pushes his stool away from the table. Its legs screech against the floor, and Peter, wide-eyed and shaking with nervous energy, flinches at the sound.

Tony doesn't notice.

 _"Honestly,_ kid," he continues, stumbling a bit as he heads over to the corner of the room where he keeps cleaning supplies. "Get yourself under _control._ Not everybody can tolerate that kind of stuff! I'm having a hard enough time as it is, and you just come in here and _talk, talk, talk._ "

He grabs the broom, fumbling its handle a bit before getting a good grip on it and heading back to his mess. Peter's already crouched beside the pile of shattered glass. His eyes are fixed to the ground, and as he picks up the biggest pieces, a single tear drips down his pale cheek.

"I see what Howard meant when he talked about regretting having a kid."

Now, Tony's known the kid for a few years at this point. He's seen him take tirades from Jameson, that moronic editor who works at the Bugle. He's watched as angry citizens threw things at him and, even when he'd been hit with a bottle, Peter had taken it silently and without breaking. The kid isn't a stranger to anger, and Tony knows he can take more slander than the average person, even at the young age of seventeen.

But even he knows when he's made a real mistake.

 _The first mistake was letting yourself get to that point,_ he'll remind himself later. _That was where you went wrong._

_The second was pulling out that bottle._

Peter abruptly snatches the broom out of Tony's hands. "You're too drunk to deal with this," he says quietly, voice flat. "Please go lie down. I'll take care of it."

"Give me the broom." Apparently, he doesn't know where to stop.

"I can't do that, Mister Stark."

There are tears streaming down Peter's face when he looks up, meeting Tony's cold eyes. He starts to sweep the shards of glass into a neat pile, hands shaking. Everything about him is droopy and tired, like he's had the happiness punched right out of him.

_Isn't that exactly what you did?_

"Peter, _give me the broom,"_ Tony orders. He stands over Peter like an enormous shadow, hand extended, palm up. "Now."

"No, sir. I'm sorry," Peter whispers. His voice is so _small_ , and he won't look up at the man looming over him. 

_You're just like Howard._

"Don't say _no_ to me again."

Again, all Peter does is apologize and continue to sweep. 

Anger builds up in Tony's chest like a dark cloud, billowing up from his stomach, through his esophagus, toward his mouth and brain. Now he's the one shaking, but for very different reasons than Peter had been. Tony knows that if the cloud reaches his head, there'll be no going back, and he'll make things _even worse_ (although it doesn't really seem like that's possible).

But, while Sober Tony would never have made these mistakes in the first place, Drunk Tony is made of anger and resentment and all of the things that Peter lacks. All of the things that make Peter better than him, make him worth fighting for. Drunk Tony lacks common sense, reasoning skills, general self-control, and this scenario is exactly why he'd given up drinking in the first place.

The dark cloud moves faster, storm clouds advancing upon a small town, and Tony _snaps._

Judgement so far beyond impaired that he's beyond logical thinking altogether, he reaches out and grabs the handle of the broom just above where Peter's holding it. The kid stares at him like he's gone insane.

His one-handed grip is more than enough to hold on. Super strength is on Peter's side, but while he doesn't want Tony to hurt himself, he also doesn't want to pull too hard and accidentally make him step into the glass. Peter gives the handle an experimental tug, watching his mentor stare down at him with a terrifying amount of anger in his eyes.

Even though he's drunk, Peter clearly thinks Tony's present enough to know when to stop. He's wrong.

Tony harbors no reservations. He musters up all of his strength and, catching the kid off guard, pulls as hard as he possibly can. Peter stumbles forward, fingers slipping from the broom, and _falls._

Time slows down for a minute. Suddenly, Tony is _very much_ sober, but it's too late, because the kid's tripping over his shoelace and he can't catch the edge of the table and he lands on his knees _in the middle of the pile._

Peter grunts on impact. A shrill scream tears itself from his mouth as he grips Tony's worktable and _drags_ himself to his feet, but he cuts himself off, shoving his hand into his mouth and biting down as hard as he can. There are jagged shards of glass embedded in his knees, and even though it's obvious that every step hurts, he moves backwards as quickly as he can.

Drops of blood hit the white tile.

Tony watches, dumbstruck, as Peter sobs into his hand. The knees of his jeans are ripped and soaked in red, and _God,_ there's a lot of blood. The kid doesn't even bother to try to remove the glass _in his skin_ as he gathers up his backpack and, without a backwards glance, rushes out of the lab. 

There's a trail of red where he'd walked. Shards of glass are scattered around the floor, no longer in Peter's neat pile, and small drops of vodka litter the ground among them.

Tony is left standing with a broom in his hand and an unbelievable amount of guilt in his heart. The buzz is wearing off, and reality is setting in, and oh, how cruel the universe is.

Howard Stark, even in death, keeps finding ways to manifest. He just never thought it would be like this.

∴

When Rhodey walks in through the still-open lab door to see Tony slumped over and shaking at Peter's spot at their table, shattered glass and blood all over the floor, he knows exactly what happened. After all, he's the only one of the Avengers who was there to deal with Tony's MIT days, when he'd been so young and impressionable and tired. 

He'd gone back to their dorm many times to find his prodigy roommate blackout drunk or crying, and by the time they'd graduated, he'd become very good at dealing with him.

Rhodey sighs and picks his way across the room, carefully avoiding the visible pieces of glass. "Tones. Hey, Tones."

Tony doesn't sit up, but he holds up a hand to acknowledge that he's very much conscious and alive. Rhodey sits down next to him, rubbing his back gently, and takes a deep breath.

"I thought you'd quit drinking."

"I thought I had, too," says Tony, and Rhodey's heartstrings snap at the awful sadness in his friend's voice. "God, Rhodes, I messed up."

"It's okay." _Not really._ "Let's just clean this up, alright? We can figure out what to do."

A pause. 

"Where are you bleeding?"

 _That's_ when Tony looks up, and his face is shining with so many tears that he's got to have been crying for hours. He sniffs once, brushing his fist roughly over his mouth, before violently shaking his head and turning away. 

"Not mine. Peter's."

Rhodey feels his heart drop into his stomach. "Oh, my _God_ , Tony. _Peter_ was here?"

Tony nods miserably. "Not my blood," he says again. "It's his."

"Where is he now?"

"Dunno." Shrugs. "Left. A while ago."

"And you _let_ him leave?"

"Was drunk. Couldn't- couldn't think straight. He fell in some of the glass, cut his knees up. Left."

Rhodey takes a deep breath and bites his lip, reaching over to grab Tony's phone from where it sits, untouched, on the corner of the table. No notifications, messages, and nothing from May or Peter.

"You didn't try to call anyone? Didn't think to tell one of us so we could go check on him?"

"I wasn't _thinking!_ " Tony shouts, slamming his hand down on the table for the second time that day. "I _screamed_ at the kid and broke things and he's _hurt_ and _gone_ and I don't know what to do!"

And Rhodey's _angry_ now, because when it was just Tony who was in danger of himself? That was entirely different, because he only had to protect himself. Now, they've got Peter, a _seventeen-year-old_ with abandonment issues and a guilt-complex the size of Manhattan. 

"Don't you yell at me!" Rhodey screams back, sweeping the bottle of vodka off of the table, where it shatters and joins the remnants of Howard's glass. "You swore you weren't going to do this again, that you were going to _fix it and come to us_ instead of putting yourself and _everyone around you_ in danger, and now Peter's _hurt._ You fucked up, Tony," he snaps. "That's on you and nobody else."

"You don't think I know that?"

" _No,_ I don't, because if you knew what you were doing was wrong, you wouldn't have done it." Rhodey stands abruptly, head whirling, and grabs Tony by the elbow before pulling him roughly to his feet. Tony stumbles, but he manages to recover his footing and draws himself up to glare coldly into his best friend's eyes. "And now, you're going to have to fix it."

There's a moment of frozen silence. Neither of the men seems to be able to break eye contact, locked in a battle of pride.

Tony, unsurprisingly, is the one to look away.

"I'll call the kid's aunt and explain," he says quietly. 

"Good."

Rhodey hands the phone over, his steely glare still locked on Tony's face, and the latter takes it without argument. He unlocks it and starts to dial May's number, but before he can finish, it starts to buzz.

_May Parker calling._

_May Parker calling._

_May Parker calling._

"Shit," Tony mutters, before clicking _accept_ and putting his phone on speaker. "Hello?" 

_"Tony?"_ May asks, and she sounds like she's been crying, oh _God-_

"May, I can explain-"

_"Is Peter with you?"_

Tony and Rhodey freeze, staring at the screen with a newfound terror.

"He's- he's not with you?" Rhodey asks, a sense of urgency in his voice. "He didn't come home?"

_"No, he didn't, and it's getting really late and I just got a voicemail from him and I think- oh, God, Tony. Tony, I think someone took him."_

∴

They snatch him straight off of the street outside of Stark Tower, and the worst thing about it is that Peter can't fight back. He tries, sure, picking up his pace as much as he can without wanting to pass out from the pain in his knees as soon as the dark sedan pulls up to the curb next to him. The problem is, he can't move much faster than a walking pace without the glass in his knees causing him enough physical pain to bring him to tears.

The sedan pulls forward like a snail, matching his pace, and Peter practically _sobs._ He wants to run, wants to fight, doesn't want them to hurt him, but he can't do anything about it. He knows that it's just going to be worse if he tries anything, because there's no logical reason for a car without a license plate to be following him this carefully.

So, for the first time in his entire life, Peter _sits down,_ puts his hands on the back of his neck, and waits. 

Waits with blood dripping down his shins and soaking into the already-saturated fabric of his jeans. Waits as glass grinds into his bones and sets him on fire every time he breathes. Waits as tears start welling up in his eyes and spilling over his lashes and soaking his cheeks and _oh, God, that's a lot of blood._

The door closest to the sidewalk, closest to where Peter's crouched, opens with a quiet _squeak._ Someone steps out- a woman with dark glasses and choppy hair that curls around her jaw. She's holding a gun loosely in her left hand and her body is tense, like she's expecting a fight. The clicking sound of her heels hitting asphalt pierces Peter's eardrums like a knife, and he winces before lowering his head.

His hands are sweating, and it's dripping down the back of his neck.

People are walking further down the street, and they don't bother to stop. Maybe they just don't see.

The engine of the car is still running.

The woman is still standing there, watching him with a furrowed brow and pursed lips.

There's someone sitting in the car behind her, and they're staring, too.

Peter feels like he's in a zoo. The trembling in his hands is starting to spread to the rest of his body. The pain in his knees is ramping up to unbearable levels. He's sure his entire being is vibrating like one of those old movie intros- the ones with the colors that pulse in and out and around everything and everyone in the frame to the point where you don't really know what's going on anymore.

The second person in the backseat steps out to stand beside the first woman. At first, Peter thinks they're male- their hair is cropped shorter than his is- but, when they turn around, large eyes and feminine features pop out of their- her- face.

The second woman moves more quickly and with a level of conviction that the second woman had been lacking. She's crouched in front of Peter before he can blink, reaching up with gentle hands to pull his hands down from his ears. He can see her lips moving, her brow wrinkling with concern, but she isn't speaking.

Is she?

"-kid, you've gotta answer me," she says, voice low and gentle. "Are you okay? Did someone do this to you? Can you hear me?"

Peter nods wordlessly, staring up into her face. The soft leather of her jacket brushes up against his bare arms, whispering against his skin and making him wince.

His senses are dialed to eleven.

This is bad. He has no chance of being able to fight his way out of anything, and from the way his head is spinning, he's starting to wonder if he's going to pass out.

The short-haired woman pulls her jacket from around her shoulders and drapes it over Peter's, carefully inspecting the glass in his knees. The woman by the car moves forward, too, resting one of her hands on the second's head and exposing a ring with a small crystal on her left ring finger. Peter, tired and barely present, looks down to see a matching ring on his savior's left hand.

"You're married?" He asks tiredly, poking the ring on her finger. "Tha's... tha's nice, miss. Missus. S'rry."

"Oh, my God," the first woman mutters worriedly. "'He's so out of it, Iz."

"I know," Iz says, "that would be the blood loss talking. He needs to get to a hospital, probably needs a transfusion-"

"Get him in the damn car!" A third voice snaps, this time belonging to a man. " _Now!"_

Iz swears and looks up at her wife. "Marli, take shotgun. I'll take care of him."

Marli and Iz. Those are nice names, Peter thinks, still resting his hand on Iz's wedding ring. He tells them, slurring his words, and Iz smiles. 

"Thanks, kid," she says gruffly. "Let's get you into the car, okay? Can you walk?"

"Nah." Peter pokes his knee and gasps when it hurts. Why does it hurt? Did he mess himself up?

"Yeah, don't do that." Iz grabs his hands and holds them a safe distance away from his knees, which look like porcupines. That's a lot of blood. When did that happen? "C'mon, let's move."

"You can't... can't pick me up, Missus Iz. 'M heavy and you're- you're small. Small."

"Sure."

The rubber soles of her clunky combat boots scrape against the sidewalk as she jumps up to her feet, leaning down again once she's steady to sling an arm under his shoulders and pull him to his feet. Peter whines as his knees ache, and Iz shushes him before sweeping him off of his feet like a damsel in distress.

"Wow. You're... you're strong for a small lady, Missus Iz."

"Call me Iz. And thank you."

Peter almost hits his head on the roof of the sedan when Iz swings him into the backseat and hops in behind him, buckling her seatbelt before closing the door. She doesn't bother to buckle Peter in, which is kind of concerning- Iz and Marli seem like responsible kidnapping adults, and you should always buckle your kid in. 

That's not very responsible of them.

Iz reaches over and pulls his legs over her lap, turning him sideways. There's a first-aid kit in her hand.

When had she gotten that?

" 'm tired, Iz," Peter groans. There are people talking in the front seat, but he can't make out words. " 'm... 'm tired, Iz."

"Go to sleep, then," she mutters. "I've got you."

He wants to stay awake, doesn't feel like he should be sleeping in the company of people who almost certainly want to hurt him, but he _can't keep his eyes open._ He'll just close his eyes for a minute, then he'll be awake again. He has to stay aware and alert.

But his eyes are closing of their own accord, and there's no way he can stop them when Iz is taking care of him.

His last thought before he finally passes out is _I'm going to have to write Tony's name down in my notebook when I get home._

∴

Peter wakes up to fighting. The first thing that comes to mind is that he's back in the tower and May's found out about what Tony had done, and he wants to defend him, but he honestly doesn't think he can open his eyes.

The second thing that comes to mind is that none of the voices he can hear are Tony's or May's. There are two women and one man, and the women's voices are too deep and too high respectively to belong to May. The man sounds too young.

Peter only recognizes one of them.

"Oh, my _God,_ Rainier!" Iz is screaming. "He's a _child!_ And he's _hurt!"_

"We didn't sign up for this," the other woman- Marli- says quietly, the calm to her wife's storm. "This isn't okay, man."

"We had a deal!" The man says angrily. "You can't just back out of this, you _know_ what'll happen if you do."

"I thought we were going for someone _older._ You said we were going for _Stark,_ not his _kid intern."_

"I _lied_ because I knew you wouldn't go through with kidnapping a child!"

"What the _fuck,_ Rainier!"

"Miz- Miss Iz?" Peter groans, shifting and trying to stand. Scratchy ropes hold his hands down, binding them to soft wood, but not tightly. He tests his ankles, too, and they're tied down to the legs of what feels like a chair. Whoever had tied him up had been careful- gentle, even. The pain in his knees is also almost gone, and he can feel that there isn't any glass in his knees anymore. 

He opens his eyes carefully, testing the metaphorical waters, before looking down at his legs. There's a layer of thick white bandages wrapped tightly around his knees, exposing the littlest bit of blood-dyed fabric. He can barely feel the stabbing pain that had been there earlier, which means he's either hopped up on some serious pain medication or it's been a while since he was last awake. The chair sits in the middle of a concrete room with a door on the wall across from him, and that's where the voices are coming from.

Peter squashes the thought of _Mister Stark must be worried_ down into his stomach as fast as it rises up. Tony was angry with him, and he probably hasn't even noticed he's missing.

He clears his throat of emotions and calls out again. "Miss Iz?"

There's a quick bout of swearing from beneath the door, and the man- Rainier, Peter guesses, starts to say something that sounds threatening and _extremely_ harmful. Peter's ready to fight, to get hit, but the sound of a _gunshot_ rings through the walls, followed by the _thud_ of a body hitting the floor.

He flinches and braces himself against the wooden back of the chair, watching nervously as the doorknob starts to turn. There's no telling who's on the other side, whether it's this mysterious Rainier or Marli or Izi, but there's one thing he _does_ know.

Somebody is dead on the other side of that door.

Peter breathes a sigh of relief when he recognizes the figure that steps through the door- Izi, short and muscular and holding a gun in her right hand. Marli follows close behind, tall and willowy, the sun to Izi's moon. She has a gun in her left hand, but from the relaxed way she's holding it, and the nervous look in her eyes, Peter can tell she wasn't the one to shoot Rainier.

Izi, however, has a certain hardness in her eyes and the set of her lips and jaw is cold, satisfied. 

Marli pulls a small Swiss Army knife out of her pocket, moving slowly and keeping her hands in Peter's line of sight as she moves toward him. 

"You're alright." She bends down in front of him and sets to cutting the ropes around his wrists and ankles. "We're not going to hurt you."

"Rainier's gone," Izi says. She jerks her head toward the open doorway, where Peter can see a small puddle of blood spreading across the concrete floor. "We took care of him. Sorry about that, kiddo."

_She talks to him like Tony talks to him. He misses Tony. Tony probably doesn't miss him._

" 'S alright," Peter says, shaking feeling back into his tingling wrists. His knees do hurt a bit more when he moves, but they're much better than they had been before. "Thanks for fixing me up."

"That was all Marli." She jerks her head in her wife's direction. "She's a nurse. I've got your phone here."

She pulls it out of her pocket. Puts it in his outstretched hand.

"Couldn't open it," Marli murmurs. "You call somebody to come get you, okay? Put 'em on speaker so we can tell 'em where you are."

Peter nods, unlocking his phone and trying to swallow away the dryness in his throat. He wants to call Tony, wants to call him _so badly,_ but what if he's still drunk? What if all of those things he'd said before had been the truth? 

He should just call May, he thinks, carefully going through his contacts. She'll be able to come pick him up, and it's really best for him to give Tony some space.

But something in his mind, some nagging feeling, tells him that he should call Tony.

So he does.

_Ring, ring, ring, ri-_

_"Hello?"_

He's been crying. Peter can tell, always has been able to tell, because when Tony's been crying, there's always a harsh edge to his voice. He uses it to hide the fact that he's still down.

"M-mister Stark," he stutters, nerves building up in his stomach. "Hi."

There's a pause. Then, a _sob. "Oh, thank God, Peter. Did they hurt you? Tell me you're okay."_

"I'm okay, Mister Stark, they didn't hurt me. They want you to come get me."

_"Is there a ransom? Ask them how much it is and I'll bring it, kid, I swear, just tell me what they want-"_

Peter looks up, meet's Iz's dark eyes. She shakes her head, sighs, and reaches out to take the phone herself.

"Hey, Mister Stark? This is Iz Robinson-Ramirez, and I was working with the person who wanted us to take Peter. The kid hasn't been hurt, and we're not going to hurt him or ask for a ransom."

_"He's okay?"_

"He's okay. I can send you proof if you want, but I figured you'd rather come get him yourself." She bites her lip, looks at Marli. "Our current address is Thirty-Four Anders Street. I shot the man in charge, and Peter can leave of his own volition if you'd prefer." Pause. "I just... I just ask that you don't hurt me and my wife. We weren't willing to hurt your kid. We're both here."

Marli murmurs a 'hello'. 

"Yeah, Mister Stark," Peter says. "Marli and Iz are nice. They- they fixed my knees and everything, and they haven't hurt me or threatened me at all. They haven't done anything wrong."

Tony is quiet for a moment, but when he speaks again, it's to tell Peter that he won't do anything and that he's coming to get him. Peter smiles, relieved, and nods.

"Thanks, Mister Stark." His finger hovers over the hang-up button. "And... everything's okay. With us. It's okay."

He ends the call, but not before he's heard a relieved sigh from his mentor.

Peter waits for about ten minutes before he hears the sound of repulsors in the distance. Tony barrels straight into the room and he's hugging Peter before he's all the way out of his suit, checking him over for injuries and cradling the back of his head and _wow, he's actually crying at the sight of Peter's knees._ But, then again, Peter's crying, too. He murmurs _it's okay, it's okay_ more times than he can count, gripping Tony just as tight, and Tony is apologizing again and again.

And they're okay.

They're okay.

∴

Peter doesn't add Tony's name to his journal that day. He does, however, write down _backpack_ yet again, this time in the brightest pink highlighter he could find.

It's much better than the alternative.


End file.
